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Tesla stock marks lowest close in years as investors worry about Musk’s focus
- rvnx 4y agoPerhaps one good thing can come out of this: Since most of Musk's cash comes from selling Tesla shares, perhaps this downward trend is a good opportunity for the U.S. government to buy SpaceX from him at a discount (or for the SpaceX investors to push for an IPO).
- noobermin 4y agoDoes uncle sam have an appetite for owning the company? It seems more likely a defense contractor will buy it if someone would.
- stcredzero 4y agoa good opportunity for the U.S. government to buy SpaceX from him at a discount The only real reason why they'd want to do that, is to get rid of actual innovation in space to get back to the wasteful go-nowhere days of cost-plus contracting as a jobs program.
- rvnx 4y agoI'm not sure but I think the DoD has a budget of over $900 billion. I guess they can finance the acquisition by transferring the debt to the company itself (probably an LBO?). The teams are great, so it would be a matter of keeping the operational teams and the board the way they are, a separate entity, etc. I see SpaceX as a very strategic company that can benefit everyone (hence the push for public ownership).
- stcredzero 4y agoI see SpaceX as a very strategic company that can benefit everyone (hence the push for public ownership). This would render it mediocre over time, then it would slowly wilt into the apathetic evil that killed the Challenger and Columbia astronauts.
- anon291 4y agoGiven how much progress SpaceX has made in so short a time and that I want the rate of progress to continue, I hope the US government does not buy it.
- _8j50 4y agoNASA had been lagging because of personnell, the same readon Space X succeeded. The people that were around during apollo are just now retiring. It was not because of JFK they accomplished so much and it was not because musk overworked or challenged his people they accomplished so much. Blue origin and others are also doing ok, they just were not contract winners or with the best people. DARPA still has the best minds possibly and best inventions as well. Risk taking by leadership is the big difference here. That said, no way musk gives up his desire to rule over mars or control asteroid mining industry over a few billion dollars. Frankly, he seems trumpish by the day. I don't think he has anyone close to him who cares for him and isn't afraid of upsetting him. Surround yourself with yes men and never apologize for anything, the true way of insecure and isolated powerful men.
- dgoodell 4y agoNASA is lagging because of personnel? If by “personnel” includes incredibly, weak leadership, then I agree. NASA leadership seems to think NASA’s job is primarily to set requirements and distribute funds to contractors and to avoid managing, building, or operating anything if it can possibly be avoided. They just want to pay someone to do something and slap a NASA logo on it and pat themselves on the back for their “achievement”.
- giantrobot 4y agoNASA has always set requirements and distributed funds. They've always used contractors. PIs on projects are usually full time university professors and their researchers are PhDs (or candidates) working for them. NASA is mostly setting goals, administering projects, and running the projects with contractors turning the wrenches.
- runlevel1 4y agoThe USG wouldn't nationalize Space X. They would revert to preferring ULA and would throw more money at Starliner. I recall ULA being more diversified across states, so it'd probably make a bunch of legislators happier anyhow.
- jacquesm 4y agoThat's not a fair assessment of the situation, I think. ULA does not have nearly the same cost-to-orbit that SpaceX has.
- runlevel1 4y agoThe point I was trying to make was that politicians would opt for a more conventional, politically expedient move regardless of its cost to the federal budget.
- jacquesm 4y agoAh I see. Ok, but the world has now seen 'reusable rockets with a low cost to orbit', if that advantage gets lost then ultimately someone else will duplicate it and own the market. Customers don't care about politics, they care about costs, and reliability. SpaceX has both of those, right now. Anything recycled or warmed over is not going to satisfy the demand that exists now.
- crote 4y agoThe point that is being made here is that cost-to-orbit is not the primary selection metric being used. Take a look at the Space Launch System, for example. It's not the best and it sure isn't the cheapest, but reusing factories built for Space Shuttle components does get politicians re-elected!
- mmastrac 4y agoI just saw a number that valued SpaceX at $180+B on a secondary. I don't think the IPO market is ready for that right now
- jacquesm 4y agoGP mentioned the US government as the buyer, not an IPO. So more of a nationalization.
- Rebelgecko 4y agoIs it even legal for the DOD and NASA to build their own hardware in-house?
- shiftpgdn 4y agoIt’s relative and overlooks ten+ years of trading. Tesla stock is only at the lowest since the start of the pandemic when everything wildly inflated due to the massive influx of money into the system. It’s still radically up since 2017. The last two years were a severe anomaly.
- jacquesm 4y agoThe last three months were a severe anomaly when looking at the last two years. The good news is that this rate of descent can't be maintained for much longer.
- akolbe 4y agoIt would be odd if Musk's antics had no effect on the desirability of the Tesla brand, given that EVs primarily appeal to environmentally aware progressives. Perhaps that's the reason why Tesla is offering big discounts right now.
- jacquesm 4y agoI'm pretty sure that it has exactly that effect. I wouldn't want to be caught dead in a Tesla at this point, never mind driving one. And with FSD who is to know which one it would be...
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago> The good news is that this rate of descent can't be maintained for much longer. Actually, a stock can fall 11% every day for an infinite number of days (discreteness of pennies notwithstanding)! In all seriousness, though, I would be very wary about thinking that "this rate of descent can't be maintained for much longer." Many stocks have lost half their value, only to then lose 50% more shortly thereafter, and then 50% more after that.
- jacquesm 4y agoYes, if you want to express it as a percentage of present day value, then sure, the limit is '0'. But at $73 / month it would make sense for it to bottom out at some point.
- threeseed 4y agoAlso increased volume including some very large movements. There is an interesting rumour that Musk maybe looking to take the company private courtesy of the Saudi sovereign fund. And that there is an effort to artificially depress the stock price to meet a purchase target. They do own 61% of Lucid so there is precedent.
- stcredzero 4y agoOr, it could just be that everyone's afraid of macro, plus algorithmic trading, plus the finance media likes a good clickbait-y Elon narrative. The lack of intellectual integrity in the news media in the 2020's, across the board, not just in finance, is pretty shocking.
- threeseed 4y agoTesla is underperforming the market so macro issues aren't that relevant. And given they famously don't do marketing they have relied entirely on the click bait loving finance media. Can't complain now when it turns against them.
- stcredzero 4y agoTesla is underperforming the market so macro issues aren't that relevant. If you look back at the actual history and the actual numbers, when Tesla is punished due to macro, it's always out of proportion to what the actual business is doing. Those who have been actually following the stock know this well. And given they famously don't do marketing they have relied entirely on the click bait loving finance media. Can't complain now when it turns against them. Here's the thing: The finance media is generally pushing a Tesla narrative based on fear, which would be contradicted by the facts, which they never present. So there's plenty of room to complain about the accuracy and truthfulness of the media.
- Apocryphon 4y ago> The finance media is generally pushing a Tesla narrative based on fear Tesla stock has been crazy high until recently relative to other automakers. Who is to say that this narrative is truly fear, or simply the absence of a previous hype narrative that inflated the value of the stock? Did anyone truly believe that $TSLA was worth more than the rest of the industry put together?
- jonathankoren 4y agoLosing 70% of the value of the collateral, makes me wonder where the price floor that would trigger a margin call for Musk’s creditors is. This isn’t a good financial situation for the lenders.
- etchalon 4y agoI forget where I read it, but whenever I think of lenders in this situation I remember the quote, "When you owe the bank 10$, that's your problem. When you owe the bank a million dollars, that's the bank's problem." Or something like that.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoOnly if you do not own liquid assets worth $1M that are easily acquired via court judgment. Equity in an established and profitable business like Tesla is not a bad deal in the event of default, so I do not see what incentive lenders would have to renegotiate.
- jacquesm 4y agoWhen the parties you borrow from cut up journalists with bone saws the court isn't what you should be worried about. I'm pretty sure Elon is safe from that kind of treatment but at the same time it already happened and in plain sight and nobody was held accountable (at least, nobody that wasn't a scapegoat).
- incrudible 4y agoProbably around $80, assuming a price around $1000 (before the split) and a 25% ratio. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4503494-tesla-stock-as-collateral-to-buy-twitter-avoid-buy-the-dip https://seekingalpha.com/article/4503494-tesla-stock-as-coll...
- losteric 4y agoThis seems more like a reversion to sane valuations. Peak market cap exceeded Toyota + GM combined, completely decoupled from Tesla's economic realities
- gitfan86 4y agoThe reality is that the dealership model is a scam and ICE car are going to have a lot less demand in 10 years. Maybe GM and Toyota can pivot into that world, but it is not guaranteed at all.
- cma 4y ago> The reality is that the dealership model is a scam Having the manufacturer own the "gas stations" in a printer-ink business model might be worse.
- stcredzero 4y agoExcept, that Tesla is making the "ink" quite cheap! (Because they know that making it cheap and convenient is the best way to dominate the market.)
- falcolas 4y agoSo did early printer manufacturers. Hooking users on cheap products to get them bought into the ecosystem, only to hike rates later, is an incredibly common business practice.
- rootusrootus 4y agoHow does that work? I don’t buy their ink and there is no requirement for me to do so.
- danaris 4y agoIf Tesla owns a large percentage of the charging stations—particularly ones in otherwise-underserved areas—they can hike the prices for the people who have to charge there.
- kolbe 4y agoWhile Musk's antics are a convenient political point, the larger issue is that growth stocks have all been struggling this year. Ark Investments is down 70%. Tiger Global around the same. The one saving grace for Tesla earlier this year had been the war in Ukraine causing fuel prices to surge, but those have normalized and whatever boost energy cost saving had been giving to the EV market has evaporated.
- cma 4y agoTesla was famously one of Ark's biggest and most promoted holdings.
- lukev 4y agoA very large part of Tesla's value was never based on any kind of fundamentals, but on optimism about Musk's vision and ability to innovate into the future. I wonder how much of the drop is based on perceived lack of "focus" from Musk (valid, but possibly temporary), and how much because of a loss of faith in the man himself. He has unarguably lost a ton of respect.
- brookst 4y agoAgreed on all counts, and I’ll throw a third factor in: how much is based on Musk’s public alignment with Trump and his Qanon-like behaviors, when Tesla’s customers skew liberal and urban? It’s only anecdata, but I know two recent EV buyers who ruled out Tesla because of Musk’s suddenly in-your-face politics.
- chitowneats 4y ago> Musk’s public alignment with Trump I'm sorry, what? This claim is laughable. Musk claims he hasn't ever voted for him, and they have publicly fueded frequently. You can argue his politics have moved right. You can't credibly argue he's a Trump supporter. I guess to some people these two things are equivalent, but it's simply incorrect, and reveals a certain political naivete in those making such claims.
- KerrAvon 4y agoAlignment doesn’t mean support. It means that, like Trump, he’s joined the QAnon brigade, which is unarguably true. Sure, you can say he’s only doing it for eyeballs/lulz, in which case I will refer you to Popehat’s Rule of Goats.
- chitowneats 4y agoAh I see. So he votes against the man, but is "aligned", because of agreement on a single issue? Even if I bought into your claim that Elon thinks favorably of "QAnon", that is in no meaningful sense Trump alignment. Good luck making your argument to anyone who isn't a partisan hack.
- v0idzer0 4y agoPlenty of tech stocks at their lowest close in years. Where’s the article about Amazon being down 50% or Zoom being down 80%?
- snotrockets 4y agoIt may be run like one, but Tesla isn't a software company.
- taneq 4y agoOr about all these “drops” only being relative to the Monopoly-money valuations we’ve seen recently while interest rates are close to zero?
- roflyear 4y agoYou have to chill man. You're very political here pushing this type of stuff.
- Apocryphon 4y agoTesla had a market cap exceeding most of the rest of the auto industry put together not that long ago. The fall of a meme stock is big news.
- roflyear 4y agoI think someone was talking about zoom, but tsla is basically zoom level and they are just recently cratering.
- yreg 4y agoprevious thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34149944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34149944
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- slimebot80 4y agoMost can agree Musk is right about the importance of aspirational leadership. It's just taken a while for people to see that corporate optimism needs to be held in check and be accountable. Fake-it-to-make-it is one thing, but you can only fake robot videos, solar tiles and hyperloops for so long before you completely break it.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoFSD worst of all where people have paid $10k for vaporware for years now. Some people have already traded in their first “FSD” Tesla and never actually got the feature!
- gitfan86 4y agoI've been closely following Musk/Tesla since 2014. It is been very interesting watching "experts" write Musk off as a software guy that doesn't understand cars 2014-2019, to watching people claim that TSLA will hit "10k/share" 2020-2022, to today watching people claim that Elon is a fraud. The reality is that he has been acting exactly the same way for the past 20 years. Nothing has changed except the observers.
- Apocryphon 4y agoSurely he seemed far more serious and less of a culture war-dabbling, controversy-courting troll twenty years ago. His clear shift towards messiness was at least four years ago, with his unnecessary statements and actions during the Thai soccer team cave crisis.
- dafelst 4y agoSeems reasonable, it is hopefully on track to head towards something closer resembling its actual value.
- brookst 4y agoIt’s tough because “actual value” is roughly NPV of future profits. The magic of exponents says that a 5% market share difference 10 years from now is hundreds of billions of dollars difference in value today. So it’s very hard to agree on actual value. It’s certainly not an objective number; it will always depend on assumptions about future profits and rates of change.
- DonHopkins 4y agoLet's walk through the math, and review Elon Musk's own words and numbers... Why you should NEVER believe Elon Musk! (Part 33 ⅓): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrwkNp_AOjQ&t=2m58s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrwkNp_AOjQ&t=2m58s [...] >But Musk is adamant that his amazing decision making is what drives what happens at Tesla. >It is Tesla that has lost HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS, five hundred BILLION dollars off its market cap this year. >But Elon Musk was so proud about the money he could save Tesla in a half hour meeting. >"Every good hour or even minute of thinking about Tesla and SpaceX has such a big effect no the company..." -Elon Musk https://sadtrombone.com/ https://sadtrombone.com/ https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/historical https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/historica... >"...and that I really try to work as much as possible, you know, to the edge of sanity, basically." -Elon Musk >Yeah, it's only because of Elon Musk's hard work that Tesla has lost over 50% of its value this year. >"Every high quality minute of thinking is a million dollars impact on Tesla." -Elon Musk >Oh, oh, it was so close. If he'd said that every minute he spends alive he causes a million dollars damage to Tesla's market cap. >"I mean, there are many instances where a half-hour meeting -- I was able to improve the financial acumen of the company by $100 million in a half-hour meeting." -Elon Musk >Let's see. Tesla's market cap is about $500 billion dollars. And it's lost about half of its value this year. Meaning that Tesla has lost some $500 BILLION DOLLARS in market cap this year. >For perspective, that's about TWICE the market cap of Walmart. >So let's see, $500 billion dollars in a years, there's roughly 10,000 hours in a year, so EVERY HOUR THIS YEAR, thanks to Musk's brilliant leadership, Teslas's lost about $50 MILLION DOLLARS of its market cap, give or take $1 MILLION DOLLARS for EVERY MINUTE Musk has been alive this year. >"Every high quality minute of thinking is a million dollars impact on Tesla." -Elon Musk >You've been watching this video for about five minutes. The time it takes Elon Musk to $5 MILLION DOLLARS OF DAMAGE to Tesla stock. >And this might give you some insight into why buying BURNING CANCER was still more valuable to Elon Musk than Tesla stock. Damn straight! >What he can do for Tesla, he can do for Twitter. >Now, Elizabeth Holmes this week got sentenced to ten years in jail for lying to investors, eventually resulting in a loss of about $10 billion dollars of the market cap of the company. >Musk has been leading Tesla to lose market value at the rate of about a Thernos EVERY WEEK! >And I should stress, one of the reasons Holmes got off so lightly -- yes, 10 years is lightly -- is she hadn't unloaded the stock when it was massively over-valued on her false promises. >That is, she claimed that her heart is in the right place. And that she hadn't clearly pumped the stock up and then sold loads of it. >I mean, it's not like she promised self-driving cars that would give you 100% return on investment with zero risks. >"You say, what would be the probable gross profits from a single robo-taxi. We think probably something on the order of about $30,000 per year, and we expect to have the first operating robo-taxis next year. With no one in them. Next year." -Elon Musk, 2019 >And that they would be ready by 2020. Then after the stock explodes in value on a promise that would make most Ponzi schemes seem believable. >Selling some $30 BILLION DOLLARS worth of stock. >I mean, I'm not really a stock market guy, but I think this called "Pumping and Dumping". Let me see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump >Pumping and dumping is an ILLEGAL scheme to boost stocks and security price based on false, misleading, or greatly exaggerated statements. >"Like the Model S and Model X, at this point, can drive autonomously with greater safety than a person, right now." -Elon Musk >"The convoy technology, the tracking technology, this is something that we are confident we can do TODAY 10 times safer than a human driver. I WANT TO BE CLEAR, this is something we can do NOW!" -Elon Musk >Huh. But let's leave the legality of Musk's billions on the side for a second. And for those fans adamant that Musk bought Twitter for the greater good. >"...function of Democracy. It's important to the function of the United States. I don't care about the economics at all." -Elon Musk >"This is not about the economics. It's about the moral good that you think it will shape..." -Sycophantic Interviewer >Maybe now is a good time to remember that Musk spent most of the summer filing lawsuits to try and wiggle out of buying Twitter. Trying his hardest to renege on the deal. [...] It's well worth watching the rest of this hilarious and fact-filled chock-full-of-Musk-quotes video, and the entire series, as Thunderf00t publishes more every time Musk lies and loses billions of dollars, which is quite often: https://www.youtube.com/@Thunderf00t/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Thunderf00t/videos Why you should NEVER believe Elon Musk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-kajBcyew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-kajBcyew Elon Musk, War Profiteering? W-T-F! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qGg6wiXoSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qGg6wiXoSc Why you should NEVER believe Elon Musk! (part Deux) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO9yw9QThzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO9yw9QThzU Elon Musks BIG mistake! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sCYxE0_W-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sCYxE0_W-s Why you should NEVER believe Elon Musk! (Part 33 ⅓) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrwkNp_AOjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrwkNp_AOjQ Tesla Semi: Delivers FAILURE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3dCDNIRM34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3dCDNIRM34 Elon Musk DEBUNKS the Tesla Semi, BOOED, Twitter Bannings, and Tesla CRASHING https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07ZxBE6iY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07ZxBE6iY8 The Tesla-Bot videos are so much more side-splittingly funnier than any episode of Silicon Valley or Futurama or Rick and Mortey ever, but it's 100% totally true: Tesla-Bot BUSTED: Why you should NEVER believe Elon Musk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-kajBcyew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-kajBcyew Tesla AI Day 2!!!! ITS HERE!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxth7F8Y5jM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxth7F8Y5jM The Tesla Bot: BUSTED! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmkFrv80b7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmkFrv80b7Y
- yalogin 4y agoHe seems isolated and increasingly delusional. At some point we need to start talking about more than just focus, if we are not already there.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoHis personal life has always been chaotic but billionaires surprisingly have great PR. He’s got like 9 children he’s abandoned already and who knows how many divorces etc
- summerlight 4y agoAnother issue is rising competitions from "traditional" car makers. A large fraction of Tesla's valuation comes from the optimistic assumption that Tesla will ramp up super fast with flawless execution on its production, presumably from prior experiences of other "big techs". And entrench its position with asymmetric power from its software. Those assumptions are somehow materialized and Tesla is growing very fast, but not in a perfect shape. Tesla's ramp up was slower than (admittedly unrealistic) market expectations so it gave its competitors too much time. FSD still looks 2 years ahead. And Elon now seems completely distracted by Twitter and making collateral damages to Tesla everyday. Given all the contexts, investors' concern seems legitimate IMO.
- delhanty 4y agoFairly neutral on Musk (pluses & minuses) here, but the most informational thing about this story is what it says about The Guardian and their journalists (who have to survive in the new level-playing field world of Twitter blue check-marks available to anyone willing to pay the monthly fee). >It looks like The Guardian is hoping that Elon will do for their subscriber numbers what Trump did for the New York Times's. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1587079038463606787 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1587079038463606787 pg's Twitter from the end of October 31, that is before he got temporarily deactivated for tweeting on December 19 >This is the last straw. I give up. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1604557444247539712
- tmpburning 4y ago[flagged]